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Journal of Creation 14(3):100–108, December 2000
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Paleokarst—a riddle inside confusion
Uniformitarian geologists have observed limestone features in rocks ranging from Precambrian to Neogene, and interpreted them as ancient buried landscapes—paleokarsts. Assumed to require repeated periods of long sub-aerial development, paleokarsts have been used to challenge the 6,000-year biblical time-scale.
On closer examination, paleokarst is found to be a vague term adaptable to many uses. Karst landscapes develop today on the surface of limestones and dolomites when soluble rock material is dissolved by CO2-enriched water. Distinctive landforms are produced including large scale pocket valleys, blind valleys, caves and potholes; medium scale dolines*, shafts, and karst springs; and small scale microkarst and karren*. None of the large scale karst features present today are found as paleokarsts, though standard geology claims that much better karstification conditions existed during most of the ancient past.
Moreover, even under a thick rock cover, karstification continues unchecked, making it highly unlikely that old karst features could survive unchanged. If such long periods of time had been available, most of the limestone deposits should have been dissolved away a long time ago. It is therefore subjective to ascribe such great ages to what proves to be in most cases a series of superimposed and overwritten features.
Paleokarst is therefore a confusing term because the observed features were formed under different conditions from those that operate today. There was a major qualitative change in the genesis of landforms, especially karst landforms, at the end of the Tertiary. Indeed, the Quaternary seems to be the only era of true karstification processes. Rather than a problem for Flood geology, the pattern of karstification in the geologic record is easily understood in terms of the different geologic processes that operated during the global Flood and the post-Flood era.
* Terms marked with an asterisk are defined in the Glossary at the end of this article.
We are used to seeing rivers flow on the surface of the earth, sometimes at the bottom of very deep canyons. They often cut chasms of incredible size and with bizarre shapes as they descend continuously towards an illusory rest—the sea. Yet, there are rivers which, as if hiding a shameful secret, choose to flow underground—sometimes over a kilometre below the surface. There they flow inside the earth, lured by the same illusory rest. This is how, in less prosaic language, one may define the essence of limestone terrain.
Not all rocks allow water to behave in this way. The rocks must yield to the chemical attack of rainwater enriched in CO2—usually by plants and organic material from the soil. More importantly, these rocks must be able to absorb rainwater. In limestone, water is absorbed into a widely developed three dimensional network of joints (secondary porosity) and primary voids (porosity). No matter how large the volume of rock, it will rapidly fill with water and become a natural subterranean reservoir.
In order for the subterranean water to move, there is need for a hydraulic head. At least one site must exist, either below or at the same level as the water table, from where the subterranean water can emerge into the light of day. Once this setting is achieved, the continuous supply of aggressive water penetrating into the rock starts to enlarge the joints and voids, generating genuine subterranean streams and rivers inside caves and cave systems. We can now speak of a mature karst geosystem*.
The input areas, where the surface water sinks into the rock, impress the passer-by with their distinctive landforms*: funnel-shaped dolines, all sorts of fluted rock, with intricate channels and runnels—karren or clints and grikes*. Entire rivers are ingested by a swallowhole* at the foot of a rock step that cuts across the river-bed—a blind valley*.
One wonders what would happen to these distinctive karst landforms once they were buried under thick sediments. Uniformitarian geologists have observed limestone features in rocks ranging from the Precambrian to the Neogene, and interpreted them as ancient buried landscapes—paleokarsts*. Would it be possible for buried paleokarsts to survive unchanged? Or would they continue to erode away after they were buried, since water is known to penetrate deep underground, and limestones are shaped by chemical, not physical erosion?
Finally, did the same erosional processes that carve karst landscapes today, form the buried 'paleokarst' features in the past? After all, pseudokarst* (false karst) is quite frequent today and, once buried, what would be chances of telling the difference between the true and false karst?
Anti-creationists use these 'paleokarst' features, abundant in the geologic record, to challenge the validity of the biblical Flood. How could karst landscapes, which require long periods of sub-aerial development, have formed repeatedly during a one-year global flood? Paleokarst is a geological phenomenon that requires a creationist investigation. However, we must properly understand what is meant by karst and paleokarst.
Karst—a brief historical overview
The word karst first appeared on a map published by Mercator at Amsterdam, in 1585. The famous mapmaker called the area east of Trieste, Italy, 'Karstia, Carniolia, Histria et Windorum Marchia'.1 The Romans called the same area Carsus. The word seems to come from the pre-Indo-European period, as Karra, meaning stone.2 It was then adopted by the Celts to mean 'stony desert' and ended-up in Slovenian as Kras, a regional name for the area mentioned above. After the territory was included in the Austrian Empire, Kras was germanicized to Karst.
The Viennese geologists and geographers of the 19th century were the first to scientifically study the area, and they introduced the scientific terminology, coining both local (Serbian) and German descriptive terms. These included doline (from Serbian), known in the Anglo-Saxon literature as sinkhole or shakehole;uvala* (from Serbian) meaning a series of coalesced dolines; polje* (from Serbian) literally meaning 'field' (a very large enclosed depression over 1 km across, with a flat alluvial bottom and one or more streams coming from a karst spring inside the polje and sinking inside the polje); kamenitza (from Serbian) meaning a rock pool; karren (from German) also known as clints and grikes or lapiés in French; ponor (from Serbian) meaning swallowhole, or swallet, (a place where a stream sinks under the ground). Other terms like blind valley (a karst valley abruptly terminating via a swallowhole) and pocket valley (reculée in French, sacktäler in German, the reverse of a blind valley, a valley suddenly beginning at the foot of a cliff with a karst spring) also have regional origins. All this is a peculiar kind of terminology, based on morphology, with Kras remaining a type locality. However, the incredible mixture of terms makes it difficult to communicate in a precise, unambiguous, scientific language.
In 1893, a Serbian geographer, Cvijić, defined the karst phenomenon,3still emphasising morphology. This had the effect, as Ford and Williams2 put it:
'… we now consider karst to comprise terrain typically characterised by sinking streams, caves, enclosed depressions, fluted rock outcrops and large springs.'
After geographers and geologists, it was the biologists who next took to the caves, especially after the Romanian biologist and Antarctic explorer, Emil Racovitza, published in 1907 his Essai sur les problemes biospéléologiques. Most consider this the birth certificate of biospeleology.4
Then, following in the steps of engineers digging tunnels across the Alps, hydrologists came investigating subterranean waters flowing kilometres inside the mountains. Soon a clear distinction was made between these types of waters and other subterranean waters. It was in the late sixties that a new concept began to emerge—the karst geosystem, incorporating rocks, climate, fauna and flora in a close, interconnected system. Such geosystems range from immense underground voids like the Sarawak Chamber2 in the Mulu karst, with a volume of 2 x 107m3 , to hydrothermal caves in Romania, close to the surface, that support an entire food chain based on chemosynthesis5,6 and containing 32 new species and 2 new genera.7
Karst features and their significance to geology
It is essential to understand that karst features are morphological expressions of a dynamic process—the transit of water through lithostructural units. This process consists of the following stages:
a) input (through aerial infiltration of rainwater and/or the punctual
sinking of water streams);
b) circulation (ranging from percolation to conduit flow);
c) storage (in karst aquifers); and
d) output (through outlets).
These stages are also present in the vertical classification of karst hydrographic zones.2,8–10 With one exception, unless all four of these stages are present, orthokarst and parakarst features do not occur*. The exception is that several small-scale surface features, such as karren and kamenitzas, may be present as parakarst features on a large variety of rocks, including granites.1,2,8,11 However, these parakarst features are not generated by simple CO2-rich rainwater but by local acidification. On limestone (and rock salt or rock gypsum), all surface input features are connected to more-or-less vertical channels through which water circulates towards the storage section. If there is no output for the stored water, the entire lithostructural unit becomes waterlogged, long before karren, dolines and blind valleys can form. In such cases, there are no distinctive karst landforms.
Thus a two-fold distinction emerges. Not all small-scale surface karst and parakarst features can be associated with proper karstification processes. However, whenever medium-to-large scale surface (and subsurface) karst and parakarst features are present, they indicate the existence of all four stages of the karstification process. Consequently, any correct reconstruction of a paleokarst should identify those medium-to-large scale features.
Karst and evolutionary geology
In modern times, most of the fundamental treatises of geology have only mentioned karst for its speleothems12—its subterranean crystalline deposits including stalactites and stalagmites. Occasionally, mention is made about 'paleokarst' as a paleoclimatic and paleogeographic indicator, but with little more than the concept of karst as a geomorphic feature.
Caves however, hold a special place in Quaternary geology and paleontology, because of their sediments and the associated fossils (flora, fauna and humans). However, they have only been considered a special, high-quality natural 'storage facility', and not a part of an important geosystem with which they are finely tuned. Only after speleothems were first radiometrically dated in 1958,13 was the potential of the karst geosystem for high resolution dating of the Quaternary recognised. The allegedly isolated environment of caves and the abundance of crystalline formations lured the new breed of 'radiometrists'. The use of radiocarbon for these first datings drastically reduced the range to the last glacial period. Nevertheless, the 'snowball' was rolled over the rim, and it was just a matter of time until new radionuclides were promoted as stars on the newborn radiometric stage.
A critique of the evolutionist view of paleokarst
Although it appears to be a clear-cut term, paleokarst is assigned a broad array of meanings. Geographers tend to emphasise a landform; geologists a particular mineral paragenesis*; karstologists hydrodynamic functioning and morphologies. It is significant that in the most comprehensive treatise on paleokarst published so far, Bosák et al.14 writes about a 'terminological jungle'. This can be illustrated by several examples from some of the classical treatises. The two terms, paleokarst and fossil karst, have been closely mingled from the early times of karst studies, as de Martonne (1910) pointed out.15 In different settings, these two terms have been used either as synonyms or with two different meanings. The following are just a few 'standard' definitions:
Bosák et al.:14 paleokarst : 'karst developed largely or entirely during past geological periods'. It is divided into: 1. buried karst: 'karst phenomena formed at the surface of the earth and then covered by later rocks; 2. intrastratal karst: 'karst formed within rocks already buried by younger strata'; 3. relict karst: '… karst landforms that were created at the Earth's surface under one set of morphogenic conditions and which survive at the surface under a present, different set of conditions.'
Ford and Williams:2 relict karsts: 'karsts removed from the situation in which they were developed, although they remain exposed to and are modified by processes operating in the present system.' Paleokarst or buried karst: 'are completely de-coupled from the present hydrogeochemical system; they are fossilized. When stripped of their cover beds they reveal an exhumed karst.'
Sweeting:9 'Fossil karst landforms are of two main kinds. First, those formed in earlier geological periods and never covered by later rocks; these may be called relict landforms. And secondly, those formed in earlier geological periods, subsequently covered by non-limestone rocks and later re-exhumed; these are exhumed or resurrected landforms.'
Ford and Cullingford:10 'Fossil or paleokarst … occurs beneath unconformities where solutional features of land surface have been covered by later deposits.'
Apart from the obvious confusion of terminology, another problem is that these definitions do not cover all reality.
For example, the category of buried karst14 is ambiguous, since there are karsts with features that formed before the present morphogenic set of conditions. These karsts are covered by other rocks and yet they fully function as elements of the present day karst geosystem. Such an example is the Padis karst plateau in the Apuseni Mountains of Romania,16 where sediments as thick as 85 m cover dolines that still act as punctual inlets for runoff. The dolines feed a limestone aquifer (which includes caves) that is discharged by one outlet. Obviously this example exhibits no 'paleo' features at all! In fact, it is practically impossible for any ancient karst feature to be completely de-coupled from some type of solution. Even when located deep under the surface, infiltrated water reaches them and consequently reshapes them.17 At the greater depths, mineral waters and even hot, mineral-laden solutions of the hydrothermal, postmagmatic phase sometimes invade and even enlarge pre-existing karst features, depositing a wide array of minerals, including ores.17 In extreme cases, such an invasion may occur in the pneumatolytic phase*, with garnets depositing on top of classic calcite speleothems.18 The size and shape of such features are never truly frozen (or fossilized) since the karst system is usually within range of one type of aqueous solution or another. There is also strong evidence that thermo-mineral solutions actively create karst features deep inside limestones. Deposition, if it occurred in such environments, would have occurred only after the aggressiveness of the solutions was dampened by the limestones.18,19–22
Relict karst14 is also a misleading term since it is based on the undefined concept of 'survival'. What is it that survives of 'karst landforms that were created at the Earth's surface under one set of morphogenic conditions?' Morphologies only? As we have already seen in the above examples, the presumed paleokarst can maintain its hydrogeological functions, so how can one truly separate old morphologies from more recent ones? In most cases, hydrographic and geomorphic selection criteria are used, all based on how the researcher believes the hydrogeologic setting was functioning in the past. Ford and Williams2 draw attention to this problem but leave the issue open, by introducing the category of true paleokarst or buried karst. These authors also use the term fossilized for this category—obviously intending to link the category with the concept of 'extinct'. However, while an extinct, buried creature is literally 'de-coupled' from the present biosphere, no lithostructure, let alone a buried landform (which represents an important anisotropy inside a lithostructure), can be truly de-coupled from the present hydrogeochemical system, be it surficial or deep.
Finally, it is impossible to distinguish between an exhumed karst when 'stripped of its cover beds' (as defined by all authors) and a relict karst. Again, it is entirely at the researcher's discretion (which depends on his pre-conceived view of the whole system) to decide which landform is what, no matter which of the above-mentioned definitions is used.
In my view, it is not possible to interpret true paleokarst on the basis of its landform (or as a geographic feature). It is a lithostructural (or geologic) feature, hence it must have undergone at least one geologic event—i.e. a chemical, physical and/or tectonic change due to geological processes.23 And the so-called true paleokarst can occur in a wide array of settings, ranging from voids (acting as secondary porosity), to intrastratal breccias, and to complex petrographic structures (including some ore deposits). Any other karst or fossil karst feature that is still a landform, i.e. is exposed to surface processes, no matter its actual age or geomorphic setting, is just a karst feature which may be assigned to a stage of the history of a given karst geosystem. The use of the term fossil karst is essential in such a case, because it implies that diagenesis* had not affected the karst geosystem.
In the case of true paleokarst, diagenesis does not normally wipe away the difference essential to karstification between soluble and insoluble (or rather, highly soluble and less soluble) rocks. On the other hand, it seems most unlikely that paleokarst can be buried beyond the reach of infiltrated water given the surprising results concerning running water in the ultra-deep drilling in Kola as well as a wide range of deep mines I have visited; that is, before the whole sedimentary sequence reaches metamorphism depth and therefore loses its original structure. Once water reaches the soluble/insoluble rock boundary, as would happen in the absolute majority of cases, it will exploit it, by corroding the soluble rock and thus generating karst features. Even if it may be argued that at some depth water is saturated and therefore non-corrosive (in which case it would be expected to precipitate its excess of calcium carbonate as identifiable lithologic features), the external erosion and uplift would eventually bring the paleokarst to 'corrosive water depth'. By the time erosion and uplift brings the paleokarst to surface again, clear neokarst* features should be superimposed on the original paleokarst. The literature I have managed to investigate thus far makes no clear reference to such features in paleokarst.
Problems with the uniformitarian framework
Uniformitarian geologists consider the existence of paleokarst features in rocks ranging from the Precambrian to the Neogene as a serious challenge to the creationist model of the Flood. Their main question is: 'How could surficial karst features, which require long periods of sub-aerial development, form repeatedly during the one-year Flood?'
Geologists consider paleokarst as a geomorphic feature indicating continental conditions. Yet, in those cases where geomorphic conditions in the past were ideal for karst features to form but no such features are found, the issue is ignored altogether. Here is one example: in the Swiss Alps, (north of Lake Thun) the Schrattenkalk limestone, which is considered of Cretaceous age (Barremian-Aptian in Urgonian facies), is overlain by the Late Eocene Hohgant sandstone.24 I followed the Cretaceous/Eocene paraconformity (that covers, according to standard geology, roughly 75 Ma) and was surprised not to find the slightest sign of any paleorelief, let alone paleokarst, along the paraconformity. Yet, a cave has now developed exactly along it. Neither geologists nor karstologists seem at all bothered about this very unusual setting! However, in this part of Europe (in fact in most of Europe) there were, according to standard geology, at least 4 Ma of continental conditions (in the Early Paleocene or Danian) during the above-mentioned interval, and karst should have formed.
In my view, one must first look for recurrent paleokarst episodes and/or evidence of their true aerial development. Local, small-scale, karst-like features, and even occasionally medium scale isolated features on one surface in a sedimentary sequence, are not reliable proof of karstification under a sub-aerial environment. We shall therefore concentrate on recurrent episodes, rather than details. At this point, it seems to me that a discussion of the general pattern of worldwide karst occurrence is more useful for testing the evolutionist framework of paleokarst.
A brief overview of world paleokarst and its particular patterns
There are two basic types of paleokarst: classical (exogenous, originating at or near the earth's surface) and hydrothermal (endogenous, originating below the earth's surface). The latter is much more complex as it involves a great deal of 'complementary geology', i.e. the history of hydrothermal solutions, geochemistry, tectonics, mineralogy, etc. besides karstology proper. Furthermore, this type can develop completely de-coupled from external conditions at the surface. Hence, we shall deal only with classical paleokarst. Hydrothermal paleokarst is a separate topic that deserves a separate paper.
When looking for paleokarst, one immediately thinks of cratons because they have the longest continental history. Sure enough, ancient features have been identified on cratons by geologists and engineers, usually in man-made sections either in mines or road works. However, it is important to understand that at no location is an extended paleokarst surface displayed. All descriptions of such surfaces have been extrapolated from boreholes, and consequently they reflect pre-existent theoretical models.
Far from claiming to be exhaustive, the following examples are considered by most specialists as possible or even certain paleokarst. I have presented the data within the framework of the uniformitarian geological column, only because that is how the data has been already interpreted. Naturally, as I make clear later in this paper, I do not endorse the million-year time-scale.
The Archean does not display any known paleokarst features.
The first alleged such features, karren and small dolines, are reported from the Lower Proterozoic of Canada, South Africa and Russia.2
In the Upper Proterozoic similar features have also been noted in Australia and China. On the North American continent, dolomites of the Latest Proterozoic-basal Cambrian in Ontario, Canada, also display such features.2
There appears to be a widespread Cambrian paleokarst in Siberian rocks, including early bauxites and deep breccias.2
The first extensive paleokarst is of sub-continental extent from the Ordovician, in North America. The cyclic platform karst, 'the Post-Sauk Karst', is the most common karst feature for this period.
The Silurian of Eurasia also appears to have generated cyclic paleokarst.2
The Devonian only displays local paleokarst, with the most significant being in North America.2
The Devonian-Carboniferous boundary is probably the greatest global period of karstification.
In the United States, the mid-Carboniferous is marked by another set of paleokarst features.2
The Permian shifted the case to Europe, Russia, China and generated local paleokarst in Canada.
The Mesozoic seems to have been more selective, Europe being the sole host to some significant features. The middle and upper Triassic generated the most important paleokarst features in Yugoslavia and some smaller scale ones in southern England.2,9
At the end of the Jurassic and the beginning of the Cretaceous, many limestone deposits in Europe seem to have emerged and karstified in a low-relief, low-energy environment. This paleokarst is associated with bauxite deposits accumulated in what is believed to be lacustrine (lake) conditions inside dolines and uvalas. The type locality is Le Baux, France (where the name 'bauxite' comes from). Hungary and Romania also share such features and ore deposits.
Finally, the Paleogene and even Neogene generated some local paleokarst around the Black Sea (now at a depth of over 2,000 m). During the Messinian Crisis (5.5 Ma ago, when it is believed that the Mediterranean Sea and consequently the Black Sea, all but dried out) small scale cave systems developed along the Romanian and Bulgarian coastline. The famous Movile Cave is considered as part of such a system.5
Problems for the standard uniformitarian interpretation
In broad terms, the Proterozoic to Devonian interval generated what seems to be paleokarsts mainly on the North American continent. The Devonian-Carboniferous period was more or less global, and beginning with the Permian, the weight of paleokarstification moved to Eurasia.
There are a number of important questions that emerge from this pattern of karstification, presented as it is within the usual uniformitarian framework of biological evolution, plate tectonics and continental drift over millions of years.
- The continental masses were more or less grouped from the Precambrian until the Permian. Limestones were relatively uniformly distributed, yet paleokarst features concentrate mostly in the future North America. According to accepted reconstructions, the North American continent was located between the Equator and either 30°N or 30°S, while Eurasia was further to the south in temperate climate.25 In such a location, the climate, especially in the case of the Late Proterozoic and Cambrian, can hardly account for the North American predominance of karst features, since karstification is known to be active from equatorial to subpolar regions. Nor can relief energy, since it was the same, i.e. reduced, worldwide. If the culprit is atmospheric chemistry, are we to believe that the primeval atmosphere was highly inhomogeneous? Or was it rather local lithological difference? In what way? Let us not forget that, though alteration soils already existed, there were supposedly no organically-rich soils to boost the CO2 content in the water reaching the limestone. As for the CO2 content of the atmosphere, one can only guess since no reliable data is available. So, was it karst anyway?
- Were surface karstification processes possible at all during the Proterozoic and early Cambrian? Why should we associate any negative paleorelief feature (such as holes, shafts, and valleys) to karstification processes just because they are found on rocks that are more soluble? Even more so, since no indication has ever been found for the existence of the four essential karst hydrographic zones at the same paleokarst location.
Research (using evolutionary frameworks) revealed that compared to recent values,
during the early Paleozoic the partial pressure of CO2 (PCO2)
might have been about 10 times higher than today's, and 4–6 times
higher during the middle Mesozoic.26
So, why does paleokarst occur on some limestone terrains and not on others, when
the climate was more or less ideal and PCO2 was so high that the rainwater
would have been aggressively corrosive? Lithology again? How—since today there
is little difference between the limestones of Proterozoic age of North America
and Europe?
Goethites (iron hydroxides resulting from the alteration of iron minerals under continental conditions) in the Neda Formation in Wisconsin revealed that in the Upper Ordovician the PCO2 was some 16 times higher than today.26 Well, that makes that period a prime time for karstification. Yet, the alleged paleokarsts described in North America for the entire Ordovician are rather poor—at most, karst only reached the proto-karstification stage.27 This is strange: there were limestones and dolomites up to 1,200 m thick and exposed to karstification in a very CO2-rich atmosphere for alleged millions of years. Yet only a few metres to 140 metres of the surface was removed!28 The arid to semi-arid climate is no excuse for the absence of any significant karstification over such a long period of time. The ratio of denudation (ROD) on limestones in the Sahara has been determined at 6 mm/ka under present conditions.29 Given the previously mentioned PCO2 values calculated for the Ordovician,27 one may parsimoniously consider a ROD of 100 mm/ka for that period. What happened then? Why was there such a poor rate of denudation? Or maybe those alleged millions of years of karstification did not exist! - Let us now look at the paleokarsts of the Devonian/Carboniferous which were almost
global. According to standard geology, the continents were much closer to each other
than today; there was an important vegetal biomass; climate was relatively homogenous
and quite stable; and humidity was high. PCO2 was probably much higher
than today, and we are told there were at least 20 Ma of full-throttle karstification.
Considering an average of 50 mm/ka ROD—based on present day conditions30—for
comparable climate conditions but a higher PCO2 , one may again estimate
about 100 mm/ka for the Devonian/Carboniferous ROD. That means that at least 2,000
m should have corroded away in the 20-Ma uniformitarian time available! Nothing
like that is reported from the geological archives. The highest estimates so far
for the amount of carbonates removed by karstification are only 200 m.
One may of course argue that the low-energy relief of the landscape never exposed the entire carbonate pile. In that case, an intricate and deep water table and phreatic type of karst2 is expected (as all theoretical models and present examples actually require in such a setting), with extensive mazes of winding conduits that can better survive geologic events and which display unmistakable paleokarst features. Yet, there is nothing like that in the archives. As a matter-of-fact, this kind of paleokarst should occur before each marine transgression, because the water table would rise with the rise in sea level (or the subsidence of the continents). Unless of course, the transgressions were very rapid—which is not the case presented by evolutionary geology. - Moving now to the Mesozoic bauxite-rich paleokarst: some very interesting bauxite deposits, containing dinosaur bones, have been discovered in Romania.30 Many unusual features are associated with these deposits,31 seriously challenging their uniformitarian interpretation. The ensemble of the mountain unit (called Apuseni Mountains) displays no reliable evidence of paleokarst features for the late Jurassic; no paleovalleys, caves, travertines or karren have been identified with an acceptable degree of certitude, although some claim bauxite accumulated in a subaerial or lacustrine paleokarst.32 The same major question arises concerning this alleged paleokarst: if there were millions of years of karstification in quite humid conditions, how is it possible that no major, clear-cut karst features, especially caves, were formed? How is it possible that in places the amount of limestone removed by dissolution is insignificant? And why are there no traces of an ancient water table and no phreatic karst? If the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary was intensely karstified, it would represent a major disconformity along which Quaternary karst, especially caves and cave systems, should have developed. After all, it was available for an alleged 98 Ma (the entire structure allegedly emerged by the end of the Albian, never to be submerged again).32 All the caves I have investigated in the area, some over 15 km long, in which the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary is present (often hardly noticeable) actually cut through it, without following it, let alone reshaping it. A dense drilling grid also revealed no significant features across the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary. In fact, except for microfacies differences inside what appears to be the same limestone,33 the usual geological practice in the area is to regard the presence of bauxite as the marker of the boundary. The same is true for the area to the east called Bihor Mountains, where the entire lithostructure emerged even earlier, at the beginning of the Albian (thus providing 112 Ma for karstification), without forming any true paleokarst features.16,33
- Finally, the question both geologists and karstologists seem reluctant to ask, 'Why was there so little, if any, aerial paleokarst during the Tertiary?' There are karstoplains (a term based on Davis' concept of peneplain,1,34,35 also known as 'corrosional plains'2 ) today, so why was karst so highly localised? Why did no true, extensive paleokarst surfaces form, and why weren't they covered by sediment and preserved? The conditions for karstification during the Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene and Pliocene were warmer, and wetter—in one word, ideal. Most karstologists and geomorphologists tend to believe that the karstoplains of today are remnants of the Early Tertiary ones, broken up by tectonics and sometimes by erosional (non-karstic) surfaces and continuously karstified until present times. In other words, 65 Ma of a different geomorphology (as compared to the pre-Tertiary one). Why then is there any limestone left? If one uses a very low ROD, 50 mm/ka, as an average for the entire Tertiary, the total removal by solution during the Tertiary should have been roughly 3,000 m. In addition to this, one must not forget that the Quaternary has contributed a great deal of mechanical and chemical erosion to whatever was left of the Tertiary relief. Furthermore, in Romania for example, in the Villafranchian (Late Pliocene-Middle Pleistocene) the Wallachian tectonism uplifted most of the relief, in some places up to 1,000 m.36 For the karst geosystem, this means a dramatic increase in the karstification processes and implicitly a higher ROD. This is another reason why we should question why there is still so much limestone left.
Summary and conclusion
From the Proterozoic to Mesozoic, all paleokarst features seem to have been reduced to local minor surface features.
During the Mesozoic, it is claimed that major karst features formed only in some parts of Europe (namely Yugoslavia). The other regions of the earth, even when karstification conditions were much better than today, seem to have produced nothing but bauxite ore deposits in minor surface karst features.
Similarly, the Tertiary produced little, if any, aerial paleokarst, even though karstification conditions were supposedly good enough and long enough to generate a complex and widely developed surface and subsurface karst.
The Quaternary, the shortest era according to evolutionary geology, has managed to make up for it all. In this 'short' period, karstification processes have been able to generate the grandiose karst features we see all over the world today, from the equatorial to polar regions.
It is clear that there must have been a major qualitative change in the genesis of landforms, especially karst landforms, at the end of the Tertiary.
A logical inference from this change is that true karstification processes, like the ones we are witnessing today (which after all are the ones that inspired the very idea of karstification), only occurred in the Quaternary. All previous karst-like features represent protokarst (incipient or incomplete karst) or pseudokarst.
In my view, the pattern of karst landscapes is an excellent reflection of the qualitatively different processes operating during the different stages of the worldwide Flood, and during the 4,300-year post-Flood era.
Karst literature abounds with terms formed by combining prefixes like pseudo, vulcano, halo (referring to halides), and thermo (referring to karst features generated by warm or hot air in ice) with the root karst. Unfortunately this terminology brings together features that are genetically very different, and leads to confusion and misunderstanding. How can one consider, for example, the morphological similarities between a cave formed from ice melted by warm air, and a cave formed in limestone by the complicated processes of chemical erosion and litho-structural control?
To clarify the situation, I have used a simplified terminology in this paper, to ensure consistency of terminology, utilising as few criteria as possible.
a) orthokarst: karst features generated on limestone mainly by chemical
erosion. (I use the term 'karst' as a generic term, whenever
the above-mentioned distinction is not relevant.)
b) parakarst: karst features generated on karst rocks other than limestone,
mainly by chemical erosion.
c) pseudokarst: karst features generated on any type of rock mainly by
processes other than chemical erosion.37
Pneumatolysis: the alteration of rock or crystallization of minerals by gaseous emanations from the late stages of a solidifying magma.
Landforms have been classified as follows:
Surface features:
Small scale features: (also known as clints and grikes or lapiés),
Medium scale features: dolines (sinkholes or shakeholes),
uvalas, shafts, ponors (swallowholes or swallets),
karst springs.
Large scale features: pocket valleys, blind valleys, and poljes.
Sub-surface features:
Caves and cave systems
- Bleahu, M.D., Morfologia carstica, Editura Stiintifica, Bucharest, Romania, 1974. Return to Text.
- Ford, D.C. and Williams, P.W., Karst Geomorphology and Hydrology, Chapman & Hall, London, 1992. Return to Text.
- Cvijić, J., Das Karstphaenomen: Versuch einer morphologischen Monographie,. Geographishe Abhandlung 5(3):218–329, 1893. Return to Text.
- Racovitza, E.G., Essai sur les problèmes biospélélogiques, Biospeologica I, 1907. Return to Text.
- Constantinescu, T., Considérations sur la zone karstique de 'La Movile' (Mangalia, Dobrogea de Sud) Roumanie), Miscellanea Speologica Romanica 1:7–12, 1989. See also Wieland, C., 'Lost world of mutants' discovered, Journal of Creation 10(2):172–173, 1996. Return to Text.
- Sârbu, S. and Popa, R., A unique chemoautotropically based cave ecosystem; in: Camacho, A. (ed.), The Natural History of Biospeleology, Madrid, Spain, pp. 637–666, 1992. Return to Text.
- Lascu, C., Popa, R., Sârbu, S., Vlasceanu, L. and Prodan, S., La grotte de Movile: une faune hors du temps, La Recherche 24:1091–1098, 1993. Return to Text.
- Jennings, J.M., Karst Geomorphology, Basil Blackwell Ltd., London, 1985. Return to Text.
- Sweeting, M.M., Karst Landforms, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 1973. Return to Text.
- Ford, T.D. and Cullingford, C.H.D., The Science of Speleology, Academic Press, 1976. Return to Text.
- Jennings, J.M., Karst, The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA, 1973. Return to Text.
- Moore, G.W., Speleothem—a new cave term, N.S.S. News 10(6), p. 2, 1952. Return to Text.
- Francke, H.W.K., Munnich, K.O. and Vogel, J.C., Auflösung und Abschiedung von Kalk –14 C Datierung von Kalkabscheidungen, Die Höhle 9:1–5, 1958. Return to Text.
- Bosák, P. (ed.), Ford, D.C., Glazek, J. and Horacek, I. (co-eds), Paleokarst—a systematic and regional view, Academia Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1989. Return to Text.
- Martonne, E., Traité de Géographie Physique II, Paris, France, 1910. Return to Text.
- Silvestru, E., Stratigrafia si sedimentologia depozitelor clastice din exo si endocarstul zonei Padis-Cetatile Ponorului, Ph.D. thesis, Universitatea 'Babes-Bolyai', Cluj Napoca, Romania, 1997. Return to Text.
- Silvestru, E., Aspects of karstification in the crystalline limestones on the southern slope of Rodnei Mountains, Theoretical and Applied Karstology 2:87–95, 1985. Return to Text.
- Mârza, I. and Silvestru, E., First mention of the hydrothermal karst phenomenon associated to Neogene metasomatic sulphide ore deposits from Rodna Veche, Studia Universitatis 'Babes-Bolyai', Geologica-Geographica XXXIII:77–81, 1988. Return to Text.
- Mansouri, A., Gissements de Pb-Zn et karstification en milieu continental: le district du Djebel Hallouf-Sidi Bou Aouane (Tunisie septentrionale), Thèse 3e cycle, Paris, France, VI, Géol. Appl., 1980. Return to Text.
- Verraes, G., Contribution à l'étude de la province métallogénique sous-cévenole. Les gîthes Pb-Zn de Montdardier, la Sanguinède et 102, district des Malines (Gard), France, Thèse Doct., Univ. USTL, Montpellier, CERGH, 1979. Return to Text.
- Bakalowicz, M., Un modèle de karst hydrothermal: le karst des Black Hills, Sud Dakota, sur l'exemple des grottes de Wind et de Jewel, Table Ronde Franco-Polonaise, Sosnowiec (Pologne), pp. 7–8, 1987. Return to Text.
- Bakalowicz, M., La mine Pomorzany à Olkusz. Réflexions sur les paléokarsts à sulfures, Table Ronde Franco-Polonaise, Sosnowiec (Pologne), p. 25, 1987. Return to Text.
- Silvestru, E. and Ghergari, L., On the Paleokarst in the cave Ghetarul de la Scarisoara (Bihor Mountains, Romania), Theoretical and Applied Karstology 7:155–161, 1994. Return to Text.
- Jeannin, P-Y., La région karstique du Nord du lac de Thoune (Suisse), Actes du 9e Congrés national de spéléologie, Charmey, pp. 123–126, 1991. Return to Text.
- Donovan, K.S., The fit of the continents in the late Precambrian, Nature 327:139–141, 1987. Return to Text.
- Yapp J.C. and Poths, H., Ancient atmospheric CO2 pressure inferred from natural goethites, Nature 355:342–343, 1992. Return to Text.
- James, N.P. and Choquette, P.W. (eds), Paleokarst, Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, 1988. Return to Text.
- Desrochers, A. and James, N.P., Paleozoic surface and subsurface paleokarst: Middle Ordovician carbonates, Mingan Islands, Quebec, 1988; in: James, N.P. and Choquette, P.W. (eds), Paleokarst, Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, pp. 183–210, 1988. Return to Text.
- Corbel, J., Erosion en terrain calcaire (Vitesse d'érosion et morphologie), Ann. Géogr. LXVIII:(366), 97–120, 1959. Return to Text.
- Benton, M.J., Cook, E., Grigorescu, D., Popa, E. and Tállodi, E., Dinosaurs and other tetrapods in the Early Cretaceous bauxite-filled fissure, northwestern Romania, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 130:275–292, 1997. Return to Text.
- Oard, M.J., What can 10,000 dinosaur bones in a bauxite lens tell us? Journal of Creation 13(1):8–9, 1999. Return to Text.
- Ianovici, V., Borcos, M., Bleahu, M., Patrulius, D., Lupu, M., Dimitrescu, R. and Savu, H., Geologia Muntilor Apuseni, Ed. Acad. R.S.R., Bucuresti, p. 631, 1976. Return to Text.
- Silvestru, E., Mátyási, S. and Bucur, I.I., Proposal for a series of formal lithostratigraphic units from the Lower Triassic to the Upper Jurassic in the Central Bihor Mountains (Apuseni Mountains, Romania), Studia Universitatis 'Babes-Bolyai', Geologia XLI(2):131–136., Cluj Napoca, Romania, 1996. Return to Text.
- Davis, W.M., The geographical cycle, Geog. Jour. 14:481–504, 1899. Return to Text.
- Choppy, J., Dictionaire de spéléologie physique et karstologie, Speleoclub de Paris, 1985. Return to Text.
- Mutihac, V., Ionesi, L., Geologia Romaniei., Ed. Tehnica, Bucuresti, p. 646, 1974. Return to Text.
- Silvestru, E., Propositions pour une classification litho-génétique des formes karstiques et apparentées, Karstologia 15:55–57, 1990. Return to Text.


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Message Board
Maria V. Snyder Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Snyder has written!
Author Snyder's Book Reviews
Poison Study
Yelena is waiting to be executed for murder, when she is offered the chance to become the food taster for the Commander of Ixia. Unfortunately the training itself could kill her. She agrees and training begins. Valek, the advisor to the Commander, is in charge of her training. The first thing he does is dose her with Butterfly Dust. If she takes the antidote everyday she will be fine. However, if she tries to run away, she will die. To start her t...
Touch of Power - Healer 1
Avry evades the clutches of a delusional would-be King and a fanatical Priestess, while discovering the cure to a plague that has wracked the kingdom. Avry is a healer magician who has been on the run from authorities since the healers have been labeled traitors to the King due to their refusal to heal people suffering from the plague. The plague has killed half the population of the Fifteen Kingdoms and the survivors that are left have allied themselves...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
My name is Erik, I work as Director of Engineering, Storage Made Easy in the US. I want to share my favorite File Fabric feature with you. Some day's life gets hectic, and it is not just work I am talking about. As you can use all SME features in a personal account, this post will focus on enterprise deployments.
As an IT department, it is hard to respond to every demand. First the users, there is some combination of "access anywhere", "BYOD", "VPN free", "faster", "bigger", etc. Then as a manager your requirements are something like this: Continue reading "My Favourite Feature: The File Fabric Client Ecosystem"


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Designer Betsey Johnson's Whimsical Malibu Mobile Home!
Where can a buyer find a hot pink house on wheels in a mobile home park that attracts celebrities who could afford to live almost anywhere in the world? Stars like Pamela Anderson, Stevie Nicks and Matthew McConaughey who all once lived there and fashion-designer Betsey Johnson who recently put her Paradise Cove home on the market at $1.95 million. Just as colorful and whimsical as her jewelry and fashion designs, Ms. Johnson's charming home in the most fashionable mobile home park in the country is filled with bright colors, cheerful decor, a tropical setting for entertaining and access to one of California's most beautiful beaches.
Must SeeTop 10 Florida Condos For SaleParadise Cove is the most glamorous mobile-home park in the United States that enjoys the same multi-million-dollar views as its nearby Malibu mansion neighbors such as Barbra Streisand, but the homes are much smaller and moveable with most priced over $1 million. Spread over 85 acres with 265 single and double-wide homes, the park started in the 1950s as a small fishing camp. Today, it serves as a fun getaway for wealthy beach lovers who have full-time homes and mansions up and down the state. In addition to its location on Paradise Cove Beach with its fishing pier, restaurant and brightly colored surfboards, residents are from a far-richer, upper-middle-class group than its original fishermen with a 24-hour, guard-gated entry, a community tennis court and clubhouse in addition to a fabulous beach. Although their privacy is held close, a number of current celebrities can be seen putting around on their golf carts such as actress Minnie Driver and British model Liberty Ross who enjoy the community's bohemian vibe and friendliness.
Johnson's two-bedroom, two-bath home is guaranteed to put a smile on the grumpiest home buyer, and her cheerful trailer seems to smile right back. Privately surrounded by a combination of tall fencing and lush tropical trees and shrubs, the home is so private, there is a clawfoot-soaking tub in a terrace enclave. She has turned the back yard into a tropical oasis perfect for entertaining with a secret garden-style, pergola-covered outdoor living room and multiple areas to entertain guests. Inside, the rooms are large and airy with updated baths and kitchen, a double-sized master bedroom with seating area and is decorated in her colorful creative style as original as the jewelry, clothing and accessories she designs. The home features hardwood floors, a fireplace and skylight in the living room, large kitchen with skylights, adjoining dining room, recessed lighting throughout and French doors opening to terraces in almost every room.
Designer Betsey Johnson's happy Paradise Cove Beach retreat is now for sale, priced at $1.95 million. The listing agent is Ren Smith of Compass Realty in Malibu, California.
Photo credit: Suzy Poling, courtesy of Compass
Source: mobilehomesmalibu.com


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Band of Brothers
The Series:
HBO's 2001 ten part mini-series, Band Of Brothers, which was executive produced by none other than Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, is a pretty epic achievement in storytelling. Rarely do television series tackle projects on this scale and it's efforts like this (alongside The Sopranos and the sorely missed Deadwood) that prove HBO is really a couple of steps ahead of the game as far as their programming is concerned.
For those who haven't checked the series out, it follows the men of the 506th regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, better known as Easy Company. The series begins in 1942 with their early training and allows us to get to know some of the players a little better by eavesdropping on conversations where they discuss their home life and what they did before they joined the army. From there, they ship off to Europe to aid the Allied war effort and eventually wind up parachuting into enemy territory as D-Day explodes around them and prior to the storming of the beach at Normandy. They eventually take Carentan, France back from the Nazis, liberate a concentration camp, and storm through the doors of Berchtesgarten before their tours of duty finish up in 1945.
The ten episodes that make up Band Of Brothers are presented as follows:
Disc One: Currahee / Day Of Days
Disc Two: Carentan / Replacements
Disc Three: Crossroads / Bastogne
Disc Four: The Breaking Point / The Last Patrol
Disc Five: Why We Fight / Points
While you could argue that maybe the series isn't one hundred percent historically accurate, it's got to be pretty damn close and the attention to detail evident in the sets, costumes, props, vehicles, and even the background music all come together to make for a very impressive and legitimate retelling of some incredible acts of human bravery. Visually the series is gorgeous in its own way - despite the fact that much of it plays out in a war zone, never the most attractive of places, there's such care evident in the way that the material is shot and lit that you can't help but be impressed by it all.
Also worth noting is the excellent ensemble cast that was put together for the production. Donnie Wahlberg, Ron Livingston, Neal McDonaugh, Damian Lewis, Scott Grimes and plenty of others all turn in excellent performances and do a good job with the material. Damian Lewis, in particular, has a lot of heavy lifting to do throughout the series as he's cast as Major Richard Winters, essentially Easy Company's leader, and it's fascinating to watch his character evolve throughout the series. As Winters develops, we're able to understand how he could convince his men to follow him into battle as Lewis performance is that convincing. It's also interesting watch how these men evolve not only as soldiers but as friends. As they realize that their lives depend on one another, it makes sense that they would of course begin to respect and appreciate each other more as their circumstances dictate that they really have no choice. These relationships form a core part of what makes Band Of Brothers an interesting series to watch from a dramatic perspective and it's obvious that a lot of thought was put into the writing of the series (which was based on the book by author Stephan Ambrose). In the hands of this very capable cast the dialogue always flows naturally and fits the situations and the characters that populate those situations quite effectively.
Though it can be tough to remember who is who (a legitimate complain levied against the series by some viewers), the cast deliver believable and very sincere performances, even the generally hokey David Schwimmer (yes, the same David Schwimmer from Friends), throughout the series and all involved show some serious range. Those expecting John Wayne style determination in their WWII soldiers will walk away surprised by the humanity injected into the core players that make up Easy Company as the series plays out.
As good as the cast is, it's hard for them to not fall under the shadow of the combat scenes from time to time. The battles are as exciting and explosive as they are hard hitting and dramatic and they go a long way towards capturing what it must have been like to have to serve your country under such chaotic circumstances and under such harsh conditions. You really feel for the soldiers during these scenes and the cinematography helps pull you into the material. There's a fair bit of handheld camera work here, something that can tend to get dizzying after longer spats, but it's hard to imagine the series shot any other way and it certainly proves to be an effective way of relaying to the audience how frightening and completely insane it must have been to survive some of these fights.
Despite a couple of problems keeping various characters straight, Band Of Brothers stands tall as a very fitting tribute to a group of men who put their lives on the line to make a difference in the world. It's a dramatic tale of human bravery of the highest order and it makes for compelling viewing. It's wonderfully directed, it's exciting, it's intense and it's generally quite fascinating look back at a very important part of world history and those who changed it for the better. Fully deserving of the Golden Globe and Emmy Awards that it won in 2001, the series should be considered required viewing for anyone with an interesting in the history of the era or anyone who just enjoys well made television in general.
The Video:
Band Of Brothers looks excellent in this VC-1 encoded1080p 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen presentation. While the gritty look of the picture might irk those wanting pristine visuals, the look of the series transfers very well to HD with excellent and very natural color reproduction and plenty of detail evident in every frame. Skin tones look lifelike and natural and there aren't any obvious issues with mpeg compression artifacts (save for a couple of the more intense handheld scenes) or heavy digital noise. Edge enhancement is never a problem nor are there any issues with shimmering or aliasing worth writing about. This isn't the type of transfer that pops off of your screen as the content uses a very 'earth tone' centered color palette. What this means is that most of the image is made up of green, brown, grey, and darker and flatter looking colors but in the context of the story and the setting that it all takes place in, things really do look great. There's a lot of detail to enjoy, particularly in the close ups, but also in the backgrounds and you really get a sense of just how much effort went into the costumes and set design for this production when you get a chance to check it out in high definition. All in all, an excellent effort as far as the transfer is concerned.
The Audio:
The primary audio mix supplied on this release is an English language DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix but standard definition tracks are provided in French and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mixes while subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilian while closed captions appear in English only (for the feature only).
So how does the audio shape up? Thankfully, it's just as good as the video presentation. The combat scenes are incredibly lively and active with excellent use made out of the rear channels where attentive listeners will notice all manner of ambient and background effects. Explosions pack a very serious punch, as go gunshots, and the battle scenes definitely make your subwoofer work overtime to provide rock solid bass response without overshadowing the dialogue. This mix is very well thought out ensuring that the quieter moments are nice and relaxed while the action scenes sound just as intense and chaotic as they need to. This is reference quality material, DTS-HD mix is fantastic.
The Extras:
The biggest and best of the extra features in this collection arrives in the form of the eighty minute feature length documentary, We Stand Alone Together: The Men Of Easy Company (HD). Much more than a standard look back at the events that inspired the series, this excellent documentary allows the actual men who inspired this story to tell their tales and look back on their time in the service. Plenty of great archival photographs and film and video clips are used to illustrate various points and add some visual interest to the production and this winds up a fascinating and at times quite touching and emotional look at the horrors of war.
Also included is a thirty-minute featurette entitled Making Of Band Of Brothers (SD) where we get a look behind the scenes at the work that went into creating the costumes, sets and props for the series. We get to spend some time with the cast and watch as they work on their parts and we get to check out some decent behind the scenes material as well. The Premiere In Normandy (SD) is simply a quick, three-minute long look at the series premiere while Ron Livingston's Video Diaries (SD) is just short of an hour's worth of on set footage shot while the series was in production and which does a fine job of showing us what the cast and crew went through over the year and a half that it took to make this series.
Last but certainly not least, every one of the episodes includes an exclusive picture-in-picture commentary. These commentary tracks allow the actual surviving members of Easy Company to tell their stories about what it was like during their time in the service and to tell some interesting stories about their experiences in the military. Also included is an interactive field guide which presents a timeline explaining important events as each episode plays out. This makes for some pretty interesting viewing and helps to put the events that take place in the series into the ever important historical context. Here we're treated to biographical information for the various players, interactive maps, video clips, and more. The commentary and field guide make for a great way to learn more about the history behind this series and are absolutely worth checking out, particularly for military history buffs.
Also worth mentioning is the packaging for this release. The discs are housed inside a fold out booklet that keeps each disc on a plastic spindle. This fold out is in turn attached to the inside of a sturdy metal tin which contains the rather iconic looking cover art embossed on the front. It's quite a classy effort on the part of HBO.
The Overall:
Rarely is a series both as exciting and moving as this epic and impressively historically accurate production. Band Of Brothers has got action, excitement, intrigue and drama in spade and it makes for riveting viewing. HBO has pulled out all the stops on this release and supplied gorgeous video quality with fantastic audio and a wealth of interesting extra features. Highly recommended.
Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has given an Alabama death row inmate another chance to fight his execution. By a 7-to-2 vote, the court ruled Wednesday that convicted murderer Cory Maples, "through no fault of his own," was denied the right to appeal because he was abandoned by his lawyers.
Maples was convicted in 1997 of murdering two friends and was sentenced to death. There is no doubt that he committed the crime; the doubt is whether he could have avoided the death penalty if he had been properly represented at trial.
Alabama, almost alone among the states, does not provide post-conviction appeals lawyers for indigent defendants in capital cases. The gap is filled almost entirely by public interest organizations or large out-of-state law firms that take on these cases on a pro bono basis. This case involves one of those firms, Sullivan & Cromwell, a New York firm that prides itself on its pro bono work but here committed a stunning series of mistakes that, until Wednesday, denied Maples the right to challenge the fairness of his trial.
In 2001, it appeared that Maples had won the lottery when two junior attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell took on his post-conviction appeal. His new lawyers filed a brief claiming that the court-appointed lawyers who represented Maples at trial were so incompetent that their representation denied him due process of law. In 2002, however, the two New York lawyers left Sullivan & Cromwell for government jobs that barred them from further work on the case.
A 'Perfect Storm Of Misfortune'
The lawyers did not tell Maples they were leaving the firm, nor did they advise the Alabama court of their departure, and Sullivan & Cromwell did not seek to substitute other lawyers in their place. In 2003, the Alabama trial court — without holding a hearing — denied the ineffective assistance of counsel claim.
That started the appeals clock ticking: Sullivan & Cromwell had 42 days in which to file an appeal.
But when the clerk of the court sent the notice to the two junior associates at Sullivan & Cromwell, the two lawyers were long gone, and the law firm mailroom sent the envelopes back unopened with the words "Return to Sender — Left Firm" prominently written on the outside.
Back in Alabama, the court clerk simply filed the unopened envelopes and did not seek to contact the lawyers at the home addresses she had for them.
Up to this point, Maples was blissfully unaware of his own predicament. But in August of 2003, the state attorney general's office sent him a letter in prison notifying him that he had missed the deadline for his appeal. Maples then called his mother. She called Sullivan & Cromwell, and the law firm embarked on a mad scramble to correct its error. But all the state and federal appeals courts said Maples was out of luck. He had defaulted on his right to appeal by missing the deadline.
On Wednesday, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Maples is entitled to his appeal because he was abandoned by his lawyers. Writing for a seven-justice majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that while a lawyer's failure to meet a deadline is not usually grounds for giving a defendant a second chance to file, this case is different. In a concurrence, Justice Samuel Alito called the case "a veritable perfect storm of misfortune."
Questions Over Attorney Responsibility
Dissenting were Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. They said that the court's decision "invites future evisceration of the principle that defendants are responsible for the mistakes of their attorneys."
Not so, said Ginsburg for the majority, observing that "Maples was left unrepresented at a critical time" and "lacked a clue" about his predicament. In these circumstances, she said, "no just system would lay the default at Maples' death-cell door."
Ginsburg tracked the progress of the Maples case from the start. She noted that although death penalty cases are time-intensive, taking on average about 1,500 hours for pretrial preparation, Alabama capped the out-of-court fee for court-appointed lawyers in capital cases at $1,000.
The Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers had prepared an appeal claiming, among other things, that Maples' court-appointed trial lawyers were so underfunded and inexperienced that they had failed to take advantage of the state's evidence of intoxication. That evidence might well have reduced his conviction from first-degree murder to a lesser charge, and would clearly have been mitigating evidence that might have prevented a death sentence — if used properly.
Indeed, the trial lawyers actually admitted to the jury that they were "stumbling around in the dark," given their inexperience in capital cases.
Now Maples' appellate lawyers will have the chance to make that case. Ineffective assistance of counsel claims are tough to win, but experts said Maples at least has a shot at it now.
Separate Decision Upholds Copyright Law
In a separate decision, the court also upheld a federal law extending copyright protection for music, books and films that had previously been free and unprotected by copyright law. The 1994 law was enacted to bring the United States into compliance with an international copyright treaty, but the practical effect was that works that were once free now had to be paid for.
The law was challenged by community orchestras, teachers, librarians and academics, who argued that paying licensing fees and royalties would prevent them from using the material. They argued that the works had been released from U.S. copyright protection, and under the U.S. Constitution they could not be placed under that protection again. At issue are thousands of creations, ranging from musical compositions like Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf to books by C.S. Lewis and paintings by Picasso.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the government, upholding the law. Justice Ginsburg, writing for the 6-2 majority, said that the law was "comfortably" within Congress' powers, and there was nothing in the Constitution that prevented works in the public domain from regaining copyright protection. She added that organizations would still be able to use these works, but they would be obtained in the marketplace.
"Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolfcould once be performed free of charge," Ginsburg wrote. "[After the 1994 law], the right to perform it must be obtained in the marketplace. This is the same marketplace, of course, that exists for the music of Prokofiev's U.S. contemporaries: works of Copland and Bernstein, for example, that enjoy copyright protection, but nevertheless appear regularly in the programs of U.S. concertgoers."
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent, joined by Justice Samuel Alito. Justice Elena Kagan took no part in the decision.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Posted on 12/27/2002 4:08:26 PM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl
Walter E. Williams |
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dr. Walter E. Williams holds a B.A. degree in economics from California State University - Los Angeles, and M.A. and Ph.D degrees in economics from UCLA. He also holds a Doctor of Humane Letters from Virginia Union University and Grove City College and a Doctor of Laws from Washington and Jefferson College. He serves on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics. From 1995 to 2001, he served as department chairman. In addition, he serves as an Adjunct Professor of Economics at Grove City College in Grove City, PA. He has also served on the faculties of Los Angeles City College, California State University Los Angeles, and Temple University in Philadelphia. Dr. Williams is the author of over eighty publications which have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review, Georgia Law Review, Journal of Labor Economics, and Social Science Quarterly, as well as popular publications like Newsweek, Freeman, National Review, Reader's Digest, Cato Journal, and Policy Review. He has made scores of radio and television appearances which include "Nightline," "Firing Line," "Face the Nation," Milton Friedman's "Free To Choose," "Crossfire," "MacNeil/Lehrer," "Wall Street Week" and many more. Dr. Williams writes a weekly syndicated column which is carried by approximately 160 newspapers and is a regular commentator for "Nightly Business Report." He is also an occasional substitute host for the "Rush Limbaugh" show. He has authored six books: America: A Minority Viewpoint, The State Against Blacks, which was later made into the PBS documentary "Good Intentions," All It Takes Is Guts, South Africa's War Against Capitalism, which was later revised for South African publication, Do the Right Thing: The People's Economist Speaks, and More Liberty Means Less Government. Dr. Williams serves on several boards of directors such as Citizens for a Sound Economy, Reason Foundation and Hoover Institution. He serves on advisory boards of: Landmark Legal Foundation, Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, Cato Institute and others. Dr. Williams has received numerous fellowships and awards including: Hoover Institution National Fellow, Ford Foundation Fellow, Valley Forge Freedoms Foundation George Washington Medal of Honor, Adam Smith Award, California State University Distinguished Alumnus Award, George Mason University Faculty Member of the Year, and Alpha Kappa Psi Award. Dr. Williams has participated in numerous debates, conferences and lectures in the United States and abroad. He has frequently given expert testimony before Congressional committees on public policy issues ranging from labor policy to taxation and spending. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and the American Economic Association. |
Previously posted at FR, June 2001, by Clara Lou.
Dr. Williams mentioned this amnesty certificate on Rush's show today. Suitable for framing, forwarding to racebaiters, or friends and fellow equal-opportunists. A welcome gift for every tongue-tied gentleman and lady GOP member who's tired of being bullied and slandered by the spoiled and unaccountable far-left wing of the DNC-press.
Huh! I'm a W&J grad, and I didn't know they ever offered such a degree.
Yes: Political Humor/Cartoons. (^;
That's another great book! He has a new one, a collection of essays, that I might buy. I'm not sure about the Essays, but don't miss "Visions of the Anointed" or "Basic Economics". I wish we could make every voter read these two books.
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"I don't want to change a guy or take something away from them that's been effective. We've got to find out what shines and bump that up a little bit and maybe add a tool or two." - Trevor Wittman
If you're at Newark's Prudential Center on Saturday night and you see a blur running back and forth between the locker room and the Octagon, don't be alarmed. It's only renowned trainer Trevor Wittman, who has three of his fighters – Nate Marquardt, Brendan Schaub, and Eliot Marshall – competing on the UFC 128 card.
Crazy? Yes. Manageable? Yes again.
"We once had a local show where we had nine fighters fighting on a 13 fight card," said Wittman. "I've got a little experience with it, so I think we'll be good. The nice thing about it is that your night goes by quick, as long as we're winning."
He laughs, unbothered by the idea of his charges all fighting back-to-back. Then again, with years in the fight game, it would take a lot to rattle him, and as he points out, this isn't a one man show either.
"We've got a whole bunch of really good coaches coming out with us, so we're gonna be in the back room making sure that the coaches are running strong and keeping people warmed up, because that's my biggest key – making sure people are warmed up going out there."
The way he sees it, it's the more the merrier when it comes to having multiple team members on the same card.
"There are a lot of advantages to it," he said. "When you have your teammates and your brothers fighting, it makes for a great atmosphere. You're building momentum throughout the week working out together, you've got all your buddies to back you up, and it brings a great presence to the team. It almost feels like a team sport when stuff like this happens and it gives you some great momentum."
But for all the team aspects – camaraderie, training together, etc – this is still a one-on-one sport, and Wittman's job before his fighters step into the Octagon is to give them the strategic tools they need to win. And after working with athletes as diverse as former junior middleweight boxing champion Verno Phillips and former interim UFC heavyweight champ Shane Carwin, it's clear that the Colorado trainer doesn't create clones.
"It's all about finding your fighter," he explains. "Stylistically, everybody's different. We gotta find out what works, and boxing is the coolest martial art because if it works, keep it; if it don't work, throw it out. It's not one of those martial arts that says 'hey, this is the way you do it. If you don't do it this way then you're not gonna pass and get your next belt.' For example, people say squaring up is bad. Look at Mike Tyson. He was so good with the shuffles and the bob and weave side to side that he would square his body up to get you off balance. He would bob side to side and once he got to your corner, he'd turn the corner on you and now either he's got your back or you're squared if he went around the other corner."
"So to me, it's just about finding your fighter, and that's where the similarities are between MMA and boxing," Wittman continues. "I really sit back and try to watch my fighter. I try to watch tapes on them before they get to me, because one thing I don't want to do is what (Floyd) Mayweather (Sr) did to (Oscar) De La Hoya, which is take a six-time world champion and try to make him throw power crosses. I thought maybe his right hand got a little better, but he started getting hit with more right hands and De La Hoya's always been a left hooker. I don't want to change a guy or take something away from them that's been effective. We've got to find out what shines and bump that up a little bit and maybe add a tool or two."
This time around, Wittman was charged with the duty of producing gameplans for three diverse fighters. Brendan Schaub is the heavyweight young gun with the speed and power to end his opponent's night in a split second. Nate Marquardt is a top middleweight contender with years of experience under his belt who is looking to right his ship after a loss to Yushin Okami last year. And Eliot Marshall is a jiu-jitsu ace with underrated boxing skills who is returning to the UFC after a three fight absence.
"When we're in the gym, usually there are a lot of guys who have fights coming up and we just do the basic things," he said. "I structure gameplans for the guys, so first off, I watch tape. For instance, I'll use (Schaub's opponent, Mirko) Cro Cop – I'll pull his strengths and weaknesses, put them down on paper, and then I'll put Brendan's strengths and weaknesses down. Then I'll say what strengths can we use to shut down and take away what Cro Cop does well? What strengths can we use to open up the holes in his game? I'll structure everybody separately and the nice thing is that we have such a variety of fighters stylistically that it makes for great training partners. Then we bring in guys like Ovince St. Preux to come in to throw left kicks. We had such a variety of sparring partners, and with everybody fighting on the same night, it's been great."
If all of this sounds like a lot of work, it is. But you wouldn't know it by talking to Wittman, who is instantly recognizable by his ever-present smile. And the reason why is that the 36-year old simply loves what he does. He's had his ups and downs – his budding boxing career ended early due to a lung ailment, not to mention the usual lows that come in sports where the fighter with his hand raised isn't always the winner – but the ups have outweighed the lows, especially in the last few years, when he moved from boxing to MMA full-time. There will always be a spot in his heart for the sweet science though.
"I'll never give it a rest when it comes to being a fan," he said of boxing. "I'm a fan of all combative sports, and even when I'm working my job in the corner, I'm a fan first. The sweet science will never leave me. I might have left the game a little bit, but it will never leave me. I watch the fights, I stay on top of it, but I tried promoting, managing and training boxers at one point, and I felt like I lost a little bit when it came to training. I wasn't giving a hundred percent, and I always use the terminology 'don't wear too many hats.' If my focus is on MMA, I feel like I have to choose one or the other, and right now my focus is on MMA and I'm enjoying it. I'm passionate about it but I don't take any combative sport over the other one."
Yet there are telling differences between the two.
"There are a lot of differences," said Wittman. "There are guys who look at MMA and think 'oh, their striking's horrible, look, they're throwing single punches and no combinations.' There's a big difference. You can't get real heavy on your front leg and throw a lot of power shots (in MMA) because you're gonna get leg kicked. The distance in the fight is a lot different. (In MMA) You're fighting from ten feet out compared to about six feet out in boxing where boxers stand in a close exchange where you pull just enough to get away from a punch but be able to fire back. In MMA, there's a whole different distance. When I have boxers and kickboxers go together as sparring partners, it's tough for an MMA guy to deal with a boxer's distance when they close the gap and get 'em on the ropes. And it's hard for a boxer to fight the MMA guy in the center of the ring."
And then there's boxing's not so secret secret.
"When it comes to the head trauma that you take in boxing, I'm telling you it's a totally different thing," he said, talking about boxers who won fights and needed to ask him questions about them afterward, or those who would slur their speech after a particularly grueling bout. "I haven't had one instance of that after an MMA fight."
"It (boxing) is such a tough, tough game," said Wittman softly. "Those are hard shots when you've got shoes on and you're able to set into the canvas. And those shots can add up on you, especially if you've got a good chin."
MMA isn't for the weak of heart either when it comes to hard work and the necessity of learning different disciplines in order to succeed. That goes for the trainers too. So when Wittman made the move, he didn't arrive as a finished product and a guru of the game. He had the same growing pains wrestlers, boxers, kickboxers, and jiu-jitsu players had when they moved to the sport.
"Experience is the best teacher," he admits. "There were so many things that I was teaching wrong in the beginning when I was getting in there with the Duane Ludwigs and Nate Marquardts, but something that really helped me was the basics - understanding how to shut down a hand, how to get outside a right hand and make them throw a left hand, and honestly, footwork is one of the best tools that I use and I feel that MMA, still to this day, is lacking footwork. But it's just experience and learning. Every time I'm at a UFC I watch every coach that's there and how they're doing their footwork and how they're teaching. Every time we go to a new gym I'm learning and I'm watching. It's about learning, and the day I stop learning is the day I stop teaching. I'm learning every day, I'm passionate about it, it's fun to learn and I've got to evolve with the sport to stay on the top."
And if his enthusiasm and knowledge won't catch you, his common sense approach will, so for him there has never been any difficulty in convincing a beginning fighter that having a strong striking attack will pay dividends in a wrestling-centric MMA world.
"You have to go with the Shane Carwin effect," Wittman explains. "This guy comes up and he's all wrestling. He comes to me with three or four fights underneath his belt and he's been taking people down and ground and pounding them. And once he got to learn boxing and learn his footwork, he found his new passion. There was one interview he did after his first fight in the UFC and he said 'I wish I was younger again, because I probably would have picked boxing over wrestling. I love this.'"
"The thing about wrestlers is that they come in with a nice base and they come with nice balance," he continues. "They're strong, they're powerful, and they've got strong hips and good low leverage to be able to throw strong shots. Their necks are super strong from wrestling, which means they can take a punch really well, and you're seeing a new age as MMA grows, with Cain Velasquez and all these great wrestlers that are coming up and using their hands. Another one is Frankie Edgar. He uses his feet so damn well and I'm so impressed with what their boxing coach (Mark Henry) is doing with him. Maynard's another one; the guy loves to throw his hands. I enjoy their energy and their willingness to throw their hands."
Notice anything? Three words from the mouth of Trevor Wittman were repeated twice: love, enjoy, passion. Maybe that's why he's always smiling. On Saturday night, as he gets a little bit of TV time when his fighters are introduced to the world, you'll see that smile again, and it's the way he hopes it will always be.
"Man, I'm the biggest fan out there," he said. "I'm going to sit with the judges. I am in the best seat in the house, and I'm a fan before trainer. I'm hearing the emotions of the fans and I feel the same way. I'm excited to be there, I'm excited to see these guys go out and show the art of fighting. I love it."
If you're counting, that's "love" number three.
More on Trevor Wittman:
Head Kick Legend
MMA Junkie
Jamahal Hill Talks UFC 300 Main Event
Hall Of Fame


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Book review: The Women Who Flew for Hitler by Clare Mulley
Hanna Reitsch, a feisty blonde with blue eyes and a winning smile, and Melitta von Stauffenberg, a scholarly, aloof aristocratic woman who was also a brilliant engineer, became two of the Führer's most prized test pilots, taking to the skies on death-defying, pioneering flight missions.
Their extraordinary and little-known stories – like the two women themselves – were wildly different. Whilst both made military history with their daring exploits in a Nazi regime that was inherently prejudiced against women, their rivalry was notoriously bitter and they ended their lives on opposite sides of history.
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdClare Mulley, award-winning author of three biographies, has produced a stunning dual exploration of these two remarkable flying aces, retrieving their chequered, interwoven lives from the dusty corners of history, reassessing their wartime careers and providing fascinating insights into Nazi Germany and its attitudes to women, class and race.
Hanna and Melitta, two talented, courageous and strikingly attractive women, fought convention to make their names in the male-dominated field of flight in 1930s Germany. Middle-class, vivacious Hanna, with her distinctive Aryan looks and go-getting energy, was a champion glider in the years between the wars, making her name as a celebrity-seeking, over-confident daredevil.
Hanna was also a fanatical supporter of the Nazis and the Führer, a rabid anti-Semite and remained a Holocaust denier right up to the end of her life. She was feted by Hitler's henchmen and she was awarded the Iron Cross in recognition of her achievements.
When the tide of the war finally turned against Germany, Hanna went to join Hitler in his bunker in Berlin and begged him to let her fly him to safety. He turned her down so she offered to die alongside him but again he refused and she was ordered to leave with one of the generals.
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Hide AdMelitta, who was also awarded the Iron Cross, was more than just a test pilot; when she wasn't in the cockpit of a Stuka dive bomber, she was at her drawing board, working on the development of planes in her high-level job as an aeronautical engineer.
But Melitta's private life almost led to her downfall. Her husband was Count Alexander von Stauffenberg whose army colonel brother Claus would later be executed for masterminding a failed plot to blow up Hitler at his military HQ in 1944.
The aftermath was lethal… Hitler was ruthless in his revenge on the Stauffenberg family. Her husband was imprisoned and Melitta was held for weeks for questioning by the Gestapo. She was only saved because of the importance of her war work and through the intervention of Nazi military leader Hermann Göring.
But Melitta had another potentially dangerous family secret… her grandfather was a Jew and although he did not practise his religion and Melitta was raised as a Protestant, Hitler's race laws meant that she was classed as having 'mixed blood.'
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Hide AdAgain her brilliance as an engineer and test pilot, and her influential contacts, rescued her from almost certain deportation when her petition to be classified as of German blood and 'equal to Aryan' was accepted.
Both these remarkable women were driven by deeply held convictions about honour and patriotism but they could not have been more different and neither had a good word to say for the other. Their paths rarely crossed but they were mutually suspicious of each other and Hanna was frequently vicious and vocal in her criticism of Melitta.
Melitta died in April 1945 when her small plane was shot down by the Americans… she had been trying to track down her husband Alexander who was among a party of VIP prisoners being moved from one camp to another. Ironically, he survived the war and she didn't.
Hanna died aged 67 from a heart attack in 1979, still consumed by jealousy of her rival and still in denial of Nazi wartime atrocities.
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Hide AdMulley's gripping and revealing account of the contrasting yet strangely parallel lives of these two women, set against a changing backdrop of the 1936 Olympics, the Eastern Front, the Berlin Air Club, and Hitler's bunker, reads more like fiction than a biography.
Packed with fascinating detail about their lives, their motivations and the forces that drove them to defy convention and risk their lives in the skies, this is an ambitious, well-researched and compelling story that opens up a new and fresh perspective on the role of women in the Second World War.
(Pan, paperback, £9.99)


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In-house microbiology can be a valuable asset to practitioners, providing quick results with minimal investment. Expensive equipment and materials are not usually necessary for recovery of common aerobic or facultatively anaerobic bacterial pathogens, such as Staphylococcus spp, Streptococcus spp, and coliforms. Although microbiologic media is not difficult to prepare, it may be more convenient to purchase from a scientific supply house. Most bacteria will grow readily on standard media (blood agar and MacConkey agar plates) when incubated aerobically. Basic equipment should include an incubator, refrigerator, Bunsen burner or portable gas torch, and microscope with low, high, and oil immersion objective lenses. Materials should consist of inoculating loops, prepared microbiologic media, microscope slides, Gram-stain reagents, 3% hydrogen peroxide, oxidase reagent, microbial identification systems, and a current veterinary microbiology textbook.
Specimen Selection and Collection:
Although it is not always easy to obtain optimal specimens when working with animals, certain practices can ensure the best possible specimen under the circumstances. Application of the following principles should result in acceptable specimens that produce high-quality microbiology results: 1) Specimens must be obtained aseptically from a site that is representative of the disease process. 2) Swabs are the most common specimen collected, but they are generally not the specimens of choice, because they may become contaminated with commensals during the collection process and they provide a small sample volume. Swabs are most useful to obtain specimens from skin pustules, ears, conjunctiva, deep within draining tracts or wounds, soft-tissue infections, or the reproductive tract. 3) A sufficient quantity of material should be collected to permit adequate examination. 4) Specimens must be collected at the proper time in the disease process and before initiation of antimicrobial therapy to maximize pathogen recovery. 5) If specimens are not immediately cultured after collection, they should be refrigerated.
Specimen Processing:
Microbiologic testing should include both direct and microscopic examination and culture of the specimen. Gram-stained smears should be examined using oil immersion to determine the correct reaction. Generally, both solid (agar) and liquid (broth) media should be inoculated. Solid media permit colony isolation, rough bacterial quantitation, and selection or differentiation of normal flora from potential pathogens, whereas broth media allow for recovery of small numbers of organisms.
Clinical specimens should be inoculated onto both general purpose and selective media to maximize bacterial recovery. Plates containing trypticase/tryptic soy agar with 5% sheep blood are the most widely used types of general purpose media. Selective and/or differential media include MacConkey agar (gram-negative bacteria), mannitol salt agar (staphylococci), and phenylethyl alcohol agar (gram-positive bacteria). Microbiologic media should be stored in the refrigerator but allowed to warm to room temperature before inoculation.
Transfer of specimens to plated media depends on the type of specimen. Liquid specimens are inoculated by use of a sterile syringe or pipette. Swabs are generally plated directly by rolling the swab over an area ~2 cm in diameter. Feces are inoculated by dipping a swab into the specimen. Surgical biopsy specimens may be touched directly to the agar surface.
Bacterial identification methods depend on obtaining isolated colonies. The most common technique to achieve isolation is to streak plates using a wire loop. After the specimen has been inoculated onto a plate, a wire loop is flamed, cooled, and passed at a 90° angle several times through the initial area of inoculation. The plate is rotated 90°, the loop is flamed and cooled, and the process is repeated three more times. This results in four quadrants on the plate, which enable quantitation of the relative numbers of bacteria present in a given sample after colonies appear.
After inoculation, plates and tubes should be labeled and placed in an incubator set at 35°–37°C. Plates are incubated with their lids down to prevent condensed water from dropping down from the lid onto the agar surface, which can result in confluent bacterial growth.
Bacterial Identification:
The first step in culture evaluation is the visual examination of plated media. Most bacteria produce visible colonies in 24 hr, although some require 48–72 hr. Inspection includes examination of colonial morphology, noting both the types and numbers of colonies and any hemolytic reactions on blood-based agar. Further classification is based on the presence or absence of growth on differential or selective media.
After the evaluation of plated media, examination of Gram stains made from each different colony type is performed. Those reactions, combined with colonial morphology, may allow for the presumptive identification of organisms. If more than one colony type is present, subcultures of each are made. A single colony is streaked to a plate of nonselective medium. This will ensure a pure culture of the unknown organism, which is required for biochemical characterization and identification.
Several microbial identification systems are commercially available. Systems may be manual or automated. Each usually contains a complete package for identification of a particular group of organisms. There are specific systems for staphylococci, streptococci, corynebacteria, nonfermenting gram-negative rods, and Enterobacteriaceae. All are useful to conduct a wide variety of biochemical tests simultaneously. Most manual systems consist of plates or strips made up of a series of wells or cups that contain test substrates. A pure culture of the unknown organism in suspension is added to the test wells. The strips are incubated aerobically at 37°C for 24–48 hr. The wells are viewed for colorimetric changes, and a biocode is generated from scoring the test results. This numeric code is compared with those in the system database to obtain an identity for the test organism. Most systems are adequate for identification of common, rapidly growing aerobic to facultatively anaerobic veterinary pathogens.
Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing:
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing is indicated when the susceptibility of a pathogen cannot be reliably predicted based on the clinician's experience or the identity of the pathogen, or if the antimicrobial agent of choice would not be acceptable for therapeutic use. There are two common procedures to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility of bacteria that are able to grow aerobically within 24 hr, and both have been accepted by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). The first procedure is qualitative and is based on the agar disk diffusion method of Bauer and Kirby. The second procedure is quantitative and involves dilutions of antimicrobial agents, which are tested either in liquid or solid agar media. The latter is referred to as the minimal inhibitory concentration test.
The agar disk diffusion method is more widely used to test the common, rapidly growing aerobic to facultatively anaerobic pathogenic bacteria and lends itself better to in-house testing. The Bauer-Kirby method is based on the diffusion of an antimicrobial agent impregnated within a paper disk through an agar medium. Briefly, a suspension of actively growing test organism is standardized to a turbidity equivalent to 0.5 on the McFarland scale. Within 15 min of standardization, a sterile swab is dipped into the bacterial suspension and a dry Müeller-Hinton agar plate is inoculated by streaking the swab over the entire surface three times. To ensure an even distribution of the inoculum, the plate is rotated ~60° each time. Antimicrobial disks are placed on the plate and gently pressed down to ensure their close contact with the agar surface. Inverted plates are placed in an incubator at 35°C. Plates are examined after 18 hr of incubation. Zones of complete inhibition are measured in millimeters. The zone sizes around each drug are compared with those published by the CLSI in document VET01-S2: Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Disk and Dilution Susceptibility Tests for Bacteria Isolated from Animals to make an interpretation of susceptible, intermediate, or resistant for each agent tested.
Reliable antimicrobial susceptibility testing results can only be obtained by following standardized procedures set forth in CLSI document VET01-A4: Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Disk and Dilution Susceptibility Tests for Bacteria Isolated from Animals, Second Informational Supplement. Any procedural deviation may lead to erroneous results. It is imperative to properly store antimicrobial susceptibility test disks and test media and to ensure quality control for each test. Any clinic that does not regularly perform testing on a weekly basis may wish to use a veterinary diagnostic laboratory for this procedure instead.


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Yet again I bore horrible witness to one of those vegetable lasagnas wearing a "This is what a feminist looks like" t-shirt. This specimen was particularly nauseating, owing to the noodled form he assumed slumped in a seated position with legs crossed, bent over at the waist as if straining to empty his bowels. No, if it were only so; had he pipetted a rabbit pellet into his skinny jeans that would have been more masculine than the real reason for his neutered posture: leaning in to hang on every word a tatted, obese woman was orating regarding the glory of Aaron Sorkin's new libcrack show, "The Soapboxroom".
Christ, what a spectacle.
This peculiar, penis-smooshing posture — one I see an increasing number of "males" performing uncoerced — is truly the eunuch's mark of self-denial. It is the body language of the beta male veering into the omega dreg. It is the guilt stigmata of the man who is uncomfortable with the insouciant protrusion of his genitalia, who wishes on some Freudian level he were a girl, and who has somehow convinced himself his excitable self-flagellation is the stuff of women's fantasies.
With this in mind, I hereby propose the universal logo of the feminized Western Male:
If someone could crop this and zoom in, that would be great. Better yet, if someone could find a human version of the above pose, with one hand propped under chin, eyes watery with intense listening, even better. Nothing quite captures the essence of the de-balled 21st Century Western male better than this sitting pose, imo.
I don't always sit, but when I do, I sit like a boss.